July 30, 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nankichi Niimi. Niimi was born in Handa, in Aichi Prefecture, now about an hour's drive from Nagoya. He is very famous in the Aichi region so they are having all sorts of Nankichi Niimi festivals. One group even designed their rice field with different colors of rice so when it grew it turned into a portrait of Niimi!! How amazing is that? (That's the picture on the left. You can see a couple of foxes in there too.) Of course it took hundreds of people to actually plant it. That's real dedication for you.

The first story I ever read by Niimi was Buying Mittens. The way he describes nighttime in the snow-covered forest is very majestic and dreamlike. You really do feel like you can see what he's describing.Gon the Fox was the next story of Niimi's that I read, and by the time I finished reading it I was a major fan. Niimi is portraying complex human emotions, but he fits it all together so effortlessly that you are completely taken away by the drama. It really is a masterpiece and when you hear that he was only 17 or 18 when he wrote it, you'll probably think: What was I doing at that age?